ENTRY INTO HOME PROPER, JUDGE RULES

Despite arguments that police overstepped their bounds when searching the Palm Beach home of Mary Alice Firestone Asher, a judge Thursday said the inspection that led to drug charges against her son was valid.

Mary Alice Asher, the former wife of tire heir Russell Firestone, was placed on five years probation this year after pleading guilty to drug charges, but her son, Mark Firestone, and husband, John Asher, still face trial on similar charges.

In defending Mark Firestone, 23, attorney Louis Williams argued Thursday that evidence found during the search of the Asher home was obtained improperly and should not be used against his client in an upcoming trial.

Williams argued that a Palm Beach police officer, who went to the house last summer after Mary Alice Asher called for paramedics, did not have a right to enter the home.

The officer, John Irvine, testified that once he was in the home he saw what he thought to be drugs. Irvine testified that the drugs were in plain view and said he obtained a search warrant based on what he saw.

Officers the next day found more than a pound of cocaine and later charged Firestone with trafficking in cocaine, police said.

Williams argued that the drugs Irvine saw were not in the officer's plain view and thus the warrant should not have been issued.

"A police officer can't snoop," Williams said.

Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Richard Burk ruled, however, that Irvine was within his bounds in seizing some items in the home but not others.

Still Burk said there was enough evidence legally taken to support the issue of a search warrant.

"Everything he did, I think was reasonable," Burk said, adding that he thought the search warrant Williams sought to have ruled improper was legitimately issued.

During testimony Thursday, Irvine said he went to the Ashers' home on South Lake Trail after paramedics were told that a woman there was having a seizure.

Irvine said he got there before paramedics and saw Mary Alice Asher sitting on the front steps of the home. He said when paramedics arrived, she suggested they go inside so she could lie down. Irvine said Palm Beach police officers routinely go to emergency calls with paramedics, partly to protect paramedics from any accusations.

The officer said that when he followed Mary Alice Asher into a room, he saw a glass waterpipe on an end table, a tray of what he believed was marijuana and a cup containing pills. Irvine said he also saw a jar containing marijuana and a shoe box of several plastic bags of marijuana on a nearby bookshelf.

Williams argued that Irvine overstepped his bounds when he took a closer look at the cup with the pills in it and later the jar and shoe box.

"The minute. . .he walked over to the cup, he went beyond his legal authority to be there," he said.

Prosecutor Trey Hester, however, said that Irvine was within the law.

"That officer can go anywhere in that room as long as he doesn't abandon his purpose," Hester said.

Irvine said he also found a photograph of marijuana plants in the room and later found a marijuana plant growing in the back yard.

In his ruling, Burk said the seizure of the photographs and the plant was improper, but he disagreed with Williams' contention that Irvine did not have a right to be in the house.

"I believe that (the paramedics are) entitled to have law enforcement looking after them," he said.